|
IRRI Hit for Betraying Farmers
|
Masipag News & Views
|
Dec 05, 2001 18:15 PST
|
On Jasmine issue:
IRRI HIT FOR BETRAYING FARMERS
LOS BAÑOS, Laguna - “How safe are our seeds at IRRI’s safe keeping?”
Once again, the International Rice Research Institute is in hot water
with the recent discovery of a shipment of farmers’ rice seeds from its
gene bank to researchers in the United States without a needed transfer
accord.
In a rally on November 29, peasant organizations assailed IRRI “for
betraying the farmers” by giving Jasmine rice seeds to American
scientist Neil Rutger without the required Material Transfer Agreement
to guarantee that the seeds will not be in any way patented.
Theft & Betrayal
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas chair Rafael Mariano voiced outrage at
this “clear indication of theft” while other farmer groups expressed
fears over the safety of Philippine aromatic rice varieties in IRRI’s
custody.
Collected from the world’s rice paddies since the Green Revolution, IRRI
has in its gene bank today more than 90,000 distinct strains of rice,
most of them developed by Asian farmers.
“Without a choice, these seeds our heritage are under IRRI’s
control,” said Abigail Verdillo, advocacy officer of the Magsasaka at
Siyentipiko para sa Pag-unlad ng Agrikultura. “IRRI has claimed that it
will make sure no one gets intellectual property over these materials,
but it has betrayed us.”
Under an October 1994 trusteeship agreement negotiated with the UN Food
and Agriculture Organization, IRRI committed to regulate the
distribution of rice samples from its gene bank through an MTA.
This MTA prohibits the recipient and any third parties from claiming
intellectual property rights on the seeds. In January 1995, IRRI sent Dr
Neil Rutger of the University of Arkansas several samples of Thai
Jasmine rice without an MTA. “It was a personal request,” IRRI
explained.
Destroying Livelihoods
Through mutation breeding, University of Florida breeder Dr. Chris
Deren, with whom Rutger then shared the seeds, is transforming Jasmine
to produce strains he hopes will be grown commercially in the U.S. -- an
action that could hurt Thailand’s export economy.
Thailand exports 1.2 million tons of Jasmine rice for about US$6 billion
each year. One-third of that goes to United States alone. The five
million Jasmine rice farmers in Thailand depend heavily on the crop for
their meager US$200 monthly income.
“This shows how easily modern technology destroys people's livelihoods,”
said Mariano.
Global Uproar
The discovery last September of IRRI’s “improper release” of Jasmine
rice samples has caused an uproar among civil society organizations
throughout the world and compelled Thailand Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra to order a legal action against the US research project.
“This move amounts to a loss of our own sovereignty. Rice is our life.
You take it away from us, you take away our right to live," Veerapon
Sopa of the Assembly of the Poor, a network of farmer’s organization in
Thailand, said before a hundred protesters here.
Dr. Edwin Javier, acting head of IRRI’s Genetic Resources Center, said
that the seeds were released without an MTA because a model Agreement
was not drafted until August of 1995.
In the case of the Jasmine samples, IRRI got Rutger and Deren to sign a
belated MTA in late October 2001 one month after the scandal broke out
in Thailand and nearly six years after the seed transfer was made.
Full of Holes
Despite the assurance given by Javier that the American scientists will
not claim patent ownership over the material, critics are unfazed.
“This trusteeship system is full of holes,” said Renee Vellve of the
Genetic Resources Action International. “Under both US patent law and
plant variety protection law, scientists can get intellectual property
on modified versions of the Jasmine rice. The MTA doesn’t stop that.”
“In fact, IRRI has made clear that it will not monitor compliance with
these MTAs, only get people to sign them,” Vellve added.
Javier admitted that the MTA only prohibits recipients from seeking
intellectual property on the seeds in the form they were received from
IRRI, not their derivatives or genetic components. US scientists could
conceivably isolate and purify a gene from the material and get a patent
on it.
“The Thai farmers’ loss of control over Jasmine rice is an alarm bell
for Filipino farmers,” said Verdillo. “Especially since it follows right
on the heels of a US patent on Basmati rice.”
Daycha Siripatra, of the Alternative Agriculture Network in Thailand,
said that “IRRI has clearly proved that it cannot serve as custodian of
the world’s rice seeds” and therefore should return them to the hands of
the farmers.
There are currently over 600 biotechnology patents on rice worldwide.
Most of them are held by a few transnational companies in the U.S and
Japan, led by DuPont Corporation.
“Rice is a collective heritage nurtured and developed by our farmers for
generations,” said Verdillo. “IRRI would never even have its hands on
the 90,000 accessions it now holds if the farmers had claimed monopoly
rights on them.” (MNV, with a report from Inquirer News Service)
|
|
 |
|
